Josiah’s Johnson

Quick background, in case you didn’t already know these details. I’m in Japan with a group of MBA students from UW.  There’s around 20 of them, 3 trip leaders (also from the MBA program), one other non-MBA person (in digital media communications grad program) and me on this trip.  The way it goes down: we’re here for the culture for the most part, but we have, about half of the days here,visits with some big Japanese corporations where we go tour/listen to a presentation, have a Q&A session, and then sometimes mingle with some of their execs. Reeeally professional-like these visits are. We’re out of the hotel around 7am and back by noon most days, then the rest of the day has optional fun stuff to do or free time.  We’re in Tokyo through this Friday, then leave on Saturday for Hiroshima for the weekend, then to Kyoto for all of next week.

I’ve been having a ton of fun so far, every day. The people are great and not douche-y MBA students like I worried they might be.  I had my first truly GREAT day yesterday.  So many good things, I will try to list them and describe them as awe-inspiring as they were:

We got back pretty early, I think around 11am, from our company visit yesterday.  People were going to go off and get food and such and then meet up in the afternoon to go to the Asakusa district/prefecture/whatever you call them here.  I needed a break from group activities after last night’s all-you-can-drink Sake disaster/escapade (it was not a disaster, really, it was awesome) and Irish pub night-cap.  So I changed and then started off on a solo adventure.  I wanted to find the park that I can see out of my hotel room window.

So I set off down the street, up and around alleyways and past tiny garden next to skyscrapers.  I walked underneath a skywalk connecting two fancy buildings and turned down a small side street and watched a woman in faded pink sweat pants hanging laundry out to dry on a clothes line out her window.  I found the park, or the back end of the park.  It was on the other side of the rod-iron fence that the 20-somethings down the way were leaned against as they smoked and occasionally burst into laughter in a foreign language.  I walked along the fence for awhile in one direction, looking for an opening to get into this park, and found nothing but more rod-iron fence until I came to the end of the block. I saw an old man with shoulder length matted hair watching kids practicing soccer on a field sitting in the shadow of the Japanese language school that I’d seen that businessman run into a minute before.  A man in jeans rode by on a bike with a basket, and I rounded the corner to head back the opposite direction in my search for the entrance.

I found it.  It costs 200 yen (about 2 dollars) to enter the park, and I like that people pay a nominal amount to help maintain what turns out to be an elaborate public space.  There are wide concrete paths that wind past cherry trees that will be in full bloom in about a week from now.  People, old people young people together people alone people, are walking and talking and laughing and being happy or contemplative or both.  They are stretched out on blankets on the fields between the trees.

The city backdrops the whole scene.  Some people are just being.  Couples lie together and it makes me happy happy happy.

A few of the cherry trees are in bloom early, and it makes people excited.  They are taking pictures and pointing and I can only imagine what it will be like when the full scene hits.  It will be mayhem of the best and most quietest and majestic sort.  People are enjoying good weather and each other and beautiful things and I just can’t help but smile outside and well up with good things inside.  I stopped on a bridge and sat and people watched and city watched and park watched.  There were koi in the pond, and it reminded me of when I was younger and at my grandpa’s house, the 5 acres of avocado trees and the pond that he dug out of the ground by himself even though we was approaching 70 and he just kept going and going, carving things, building things, painting things, reciting poetry and feeding the koi in his pond.  I am full of good things.

I buy a milk tea out of the vending machine (I love Japanese vending machines everywhere everywhere everywhere I can’t even tell you how everywhere they are) that is on the deck of the building up on the hill.  I sit down on the wooden slats and notice that people are napping on the bench next to me. A couple is sitting at the table and eating snacks that they brought.  They are having a day at the park too.  We are not so different, old man and woman Japanese man and woman enjoying the park as well man and woman, you and I.

I wanted to just stay and stay and stay right there for the rest of the day.  It was so good.  I had promised the group that I’d be meeting them to go out on a train to another part of town though.  Without cell phones, you cannot change plans.  You must be a man of your word.  Otherwise people will wait and wonder or not wait but it would not be right.  So I left my spot and tried to head out the side of the park that was near the train station.  There was a large group of kids my age in a circle on a blanket in the field.  They had wine and food of some kind, and I could hear their laughter before I could see them as I came over the hill.  There was a group of school children in multi-colored hats walking in long wide lines as if they were on a field trip to the park but it was time to go back now.  I don’t know if that is accurate, but it is what I thought.

I heard singing, in a big chorus, traditional singing like I imagine they sing in Japan.  It is in the middle of all this activity in the park.  I get excited and look for where it is coming from and I see where.  I get so excited. So excited. I try not to interrupt or look too obvious as I walk past them on the concrete path and take a video of them that I would later delete because it could not do justice to the scene.  I stop my walking and my filming and just watch.  They are singing their hearts out. They are good, most of them, but they are all singing so loud and hearty and one old man is playing an instrument that I had not seen before. I makes singular electronic tones that the chorus of elderly Japanese men and women follow with such fervor that my heart beats faster. I want to come go home then and there and gather all of my friends together.  Guys! We’ve got it all wrong! We must just sing! At the top of our lungs! You don’t understand until you’ve done it. So sing! Sing at the top of your lungs so loud and proud no matter if you know what you sing or if there are words or just sounds it is joyous! The world deserves nothing less! You deserve nothing less! You cannot be truly living if you are not singing out! With all of everything, take the happiness joy sadness love inside of you and just let me everyone your mothers sisters lovers friends hear it! Let’s grow old together all of us go to the park everyday with musical instruments and voices and live!

And then the song ended and they joked around. Singing in operatic voices to be funny like kids do to show off their strong voices.  It is incredible, they are not in a retirement home in wheel chairs like I imagine they would be they are out and about and singing and joking and so happy to be here with each other.  They are laughing and getting their song sheets folded to the place where they will need to be for the next song.  Then, I can’t tell you how good this was, the man with the loudest and purest operatic voice and the blue cap motioned to me to come here!  I am not sure. Me? Yes you.  With hand motions.  They speak enough English and hand gestures to tell me to come sing with them. They give me a song sheet and I say I don’t speak any Japanese I don’t understand, but they know that I understand enough.  We start the next song and it is glorious! I pretend to look at the columns of characters as if I can read them, but I can at least end up on the loud long sustained notes at the end of each phrase.  We all together all of us.  Who knew we had so much in common!?  The man next to me put his arm around my shoulders! There were three of us, linked together and swaying and singing and I cannot tell you how this felt. My insides were bursting out of me and I could not understand why I was so lucky to be here.  We finished the song and cheered and clapped, we sounded good! We said so to each other!  I say Arigato! Arigato gozaimosu! Maybe it sounded more like origato gosaimus, but you get the idea. Who needs to spell properly when speaking?

I left their group and waved and thanked them over and over again and they went back to their singing and I was so effing happy.

I did a lot of other things too.  I got to the train and we rode it out to Asakusa and saw the market. I took my second solo adventure exploring the side streets.  I ate things purchased from vendors along the street. There were so many colors.  I got out of the way for cars and bicycles and rickshaws (I know!).  Sarah and I talked a lot about Buddhism and Christianity and rituals and energy and the feeling of sacred places and I got my fortune for 100 yen (1 dollar) out of a drawer that was right outside of the Sensō-ji temple.  It said “Your request will not be granted.  The person you wait for will not come.” and I did not worry so much.  I folded the paper and tied around my finger. I owned it.  You know, accepted it.  Buddhism talks about unattachment from things you cannot control, I was told later, and I was Buddhist about my fortune.